Mer Liquify : Maggie Roberts :: Artist > Rim Dweller

A collaboration with Eve Collett of Casamento, Capetown's most innovative and bespoke furniture studio. The Casamento Showroom is situated at the Foundry, an old foundry building that now houses – along with a foundry – many unusual artistic and design projects. We knew that the collages would work well with the pieces shown, two of which, Eve made in response to the colour palette and mood of the pictures exhibited.

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PRESS RELEASE

The Casamento Showroom presents the second in a series of exhibitions exploring unusual harmonies between furniture and fine art.
The theory is that when furniture and art are thoughtfully curated in a space, a further dimension... another element of creativity... emerges.

THE FURNITURE
The Showroom is attached to Casamento's working studio. Eve Collett, upholsterer and furniture maker, is well-known for pushing the boundaries of the traditional art of upholstery. Casamento frames may be influenced by traditional '50's designs, but the finishing techniques employed by this industrious little studio are unique. Roughly stitched brass-adorned leatherwork, elegantly repetitive blackwork and hand-embroidery feature constantly in their work. Interesting textile choices, attention to detail and a commitment to natural fibres all make the workroom an entertaining and inspiring destination.
This exhibition includes recognisable classics, as well as new single edition works, and is in part inspired by the artist's colour palette.

THE ART
Artist Mer Roberts presents mixed media and photographic collage from the ongoing series Connections To An Untethered Future.
Her work explores global concerns with survival and the unknown by engaging with the liminal and irrational - fictions of mutation and futurism. She is dedicated to evolutionary fever dreams, to experimental realities, weaving space and matter into fluid configurations that are essentially science-fictional. Science fiction is produced out of cultural necessity- a medium that inhabits prediction and flux, resisting definition and containment.

Mer has participated internationally in over a decade of exhibitions, screenings and performances, exhibiting extensively in the UK, including at the Cabinet Gallery and Tate Modern, and in Europe, Canada and the States. Since moving to Cape Town in 2002, she has continued to produce experimental video, collage and paintings that explore speculative futures and science fictional transformation. In recent collaborations with Ranu Mukherjee, working as 0rphan Portal, she has shown 'A Wilderness of Elsewheres' video installation in Santiago, Chile, and Apocalyptic Postcards in Shadowshop, San Francisco MOMA. They are currently working on the video 'Ghost River', for exhibition n in 2015. She is also making a new collage series that will be animated in 'The Chaologist', for FullDome Planetarium projection.

The work exhibited here are both dreams from another dimension and intricate collages that fuse with the rich colour fields and intensive craft of Casamento's embroidered surfaces.